Ten statements lead to two commands, one word

By Patricia Kasten
Compass Associate Editor

	Ten Commandments
	• I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other strange gods before me (Ex 20:2-6, Dt 5:6-10) • Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain (Ex 20:7-8, Dt 5:11-12) • Keep holy the Lord's Day (Ex 20:8-11, Dt 5:12-15) • Honor your father and your mother (Ex 20:12, Dt 5:16) • Do not kill (Ex 20:13, Dt 5:17) • Do not commit adultery (Ex 20:14, Dt 5:18) • Do not steal (Ex 20:15, Dt 5:19) • Do not bear false witness against your neighbor (Ex 20:16, Dt 5:20) • Do not covet your neighbor's wife (Ex 20:17, Dt 5:21) • Do not covet your neighbor's goods (Ex 20:17, Dt 5:21)

"You shall have no gods but me; before no idol bend your knee."

These words belong to the opening of a traditional rhyme which, for roughly 500 years, has been one way to help children memorize the Ten Commandments.

While helpful, any tools that only stimulate rote memory don't get to the root of the lessons underlying these laws of the Covenant between us and God.

How many of the Ten Commandments do you remember? Just off the top of your head?

While now called the Ten Commandments, they were the "ten statements" in Hebrew and later - in Greek translations of the Old Testament - the Decalogue. "Decalogue" comes from the Greek and means "ten words."

Ten words would certainly be easier to remember, right? But which ten words?

You can make your own list from the Old Testament readings - Ex 20:2-17 and Dt 5:6-21 - but for an example, you could use: Lord, Name, Sabbath, Parents, Kill, Adultery, Steal, Lie, Covet (1) and Covet (2).

We can quickly begin to see the value of "ten statements" over "ten words," since these 10 words could mean any number of things - unless you know the basic message behind each of them.

Some would say the basic message of these 10 words comes down to two: "Do" and "don't."

Yes, using these two directives can make remembering the commandments easier.

There are two "do's": Keep holy the Lord's Day and; Honor your father and mother.

And there are seven "don'ts". Don't: use the Lord's name in vain, kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness or covet your neighbor's wife (family) or goods.

(And that leaves us with one that's neither a "do" nor a "don't" but more a foundational statement: I am the Lord your God.)

To get at the heart of understanding the lessons of the Ten Commandments - the heart of living in a covenant relationship with God - we can use another numerical grouping of the commandments: 3 and 7.

When you see artistic representations of the Ten Commandments - sometimes called the two tablets of the Law - they often show the Roman numerals I, II and III on one side, and IV through X on the other. This is because the first three commandments (or the first four for those in the Jewish, Orthodox and most Protestant traditions, since their numbering is a little different) tell us how to honor God:

• Not worshiping anyone or anything other than God;

• Speaking God's name only in love and reverence and;

• Taking one day to focus only on God and the wonders he has done for us through creation and freedom from slavery and death.

The last commandments (Lutherans and Roman Catholics take the "coveting" commandments as two separate ones while the other traditions combine them as one) relate to our relationships with others.

However, on closer study - and in light of the Gospels - we can see that the Ten Commandments can be summarized into two statements. Jesus did this when he said the greatest commandments were "to love God" and "love your neighbor as yourself." (Mt 22:37-40).

Jesus was summarizing the commandments into a lesson about healthy relationships. The second century church father Irenaeus (whose feast we celebrated June 28) saw this. He wrote, "(The Decalogue) enjoined love to God, and taught (us) just dealing toward our neighbors, that we should neither be unjust nor unworthy of God, who prepares us for His friendship ..." (16:3).

There we have "the ten statements," summarized in two, teaching one lesson: friendship, with God and others. And we can also see how the commandments all fit together - in fact, they depend upon each other.

If we love and honor God, how can we not love and honor those whom God created "in God's own image"? And, just as we see God's love active within our own lives, we are called - like Jesus - to proclaim the Good News that God loves each one of us and has sent each of us to show that love to others.

From friendships, love grows. And the ten statements of the Decalogue, growing into the two commandments of Jesus and Irenaeus' lesson about friendship, blossom into one final summary. All we really need to learn from all these words is one word, the true lesson of the commandments: Love.

Pope Benedict reminded us of this in his first encyclical: God is Love. It's not a new lesson; it appears in the First Letter of John, written in the first century: "God is love ... if God so loved us, we must also love one another" (1Jn 4:8-11).

When God freed his people from slavery in Egypt and made an everlasting covenant with them on that desert mountain, he gave them ten words.

When God freed his people from death - through his son - he gave us one word: Love.

It's the same lesson. No need to count; no need to memorize. All it really takes is remembering that it's all about love. And no one is a better teacher and guide than Jesus.